Glossary of Movie Business Terms

Domestic Box Office
Total money spent on tickets by moviegoers in the "domestic market", which is defined as the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam.

Fanboy/Fangirl Effect
Certain films and franchises have a very loyal following, usually due to their source material.
Fans of these films will flock to see them as soon as they open, either over the opening weekend or, especially,
opening night. This inflates box office on these days, reducing both the Internal Multiplier and
the overall Multiplier for the film. Since young men tend to be the most ardent fans of major franchises,
this is described as the Fanboy Effect. The incredible popularity of the
Twilight franchise among young women has
led to the rise of the equivalent Fangirl Effect.

Home Market
The Home Market refers to revenue derived from people viewing movies at home.
It is broken down into three sections: video rentals, video sales and TV rights.

The Hulk Effect
Back in 2003 when Hulk was in production,
Universal
bowed to incredible pressure from fans and released early footage of the special effects. The plan was to get the fans talking and build up
word-of-mouth. However, the special effects were in the early stages and were so bad that the buzz it generated killed any chance the film had.
More recently the same happened to Catwoman with the early look at
Halle Berry's outfit. Just goes to show you, sometimes there is such thing as bad publicity.

Internal Multiplier
A film's weekend box office divided by its Friday number. It's basically a measure of the film's word-of-mouth, with 3.0 being the best
most films can get these days while 2.3 is generally the bottom rung. Certain films have an inherent advantage (like those aimed at kids),
while the Fanboy Effect can shrink the number as the hardcore fans flock to the movie on Friday.

Legs
Legs is a term used to refer to how long a film lasts in theaters.

Multiplier
A film's total box office divided by its opening weekend box office. Another measure of the film's word-of-mouth but with a much wider range of
possibilities. Films with below 2.0 are not unheard of, while 6.0 or more are a possibility. Just as a side note, not too long ago films
with a multiplier of 10 or more were quite common, but the economics have changed and a big opening weekend is too important to the studios
and the home market shortens a film's legs.

Prints and Advertising (P&A) Budget
Prints are the actual physical film that are shown in theaters and are quite expensive to make and distribute, costing about $2,000 per print.
Each theater needs at least one print and possibly more depending on how many screens the film is playing on. The advertising part of the
budget is the amount spent on just that, advertising. Most of the money is spent on TV, but radio, newspapers and magazines, the Internet and
in-theater advertising are also very important. The average P&A budget for a major studio release was $34.5 million the last time the MPAA
reported the figure in 2006 (spends are generally believed to have risen since then).

Production Budget
The amount of money it cost make the movie including pre-production, film and post-production, but excluding distribution costs. The average
cost of a major studio movie was about $65 million when the MPAA stopped tracking the number in 2006 and has risen since then. The most
expensive film commonly cost more than $200 million to make now.

Screens & Screen Count
The actual screen the movie is projected on. Most Theaters have multiple screens, with largest having two dozen screens or more.
Screen Count is simply the number of screens a film is playing on. This count is rarely published domestically, but is the basic unit of
measurement in some international territories.

Theaters & Theater Count
A theater is any place a movie is showing from the smallest cinema on the art house circuit to the largest megaplex. A film's Theater Count is simply the
number of theaters a film is playing in at a given time. Domestically, the Theater Count is used to measure how wide a release is.

Theatrical Rentals
When a movie is shown in theaters, the studio/distributor and the exhibitor (movie theater) will share revenue from ticket sales.
The studio's share (usually around 50%) is called the "rental". This should not be confused with video rentals (e.g., through Blockbuster, RedBox etc.).

TV Rights
The amount paid by a TV network for the right to broadcast a film. Networks usually get the exclusive rights for a period of time. For major films,
there will be sequence of "windows", with pay TV (HBO/Showtime etc.) broadcasting the film first, and then free network TV following a year or two later.

International Markets

Japan
The largest international box office market and one of the few markets where a movie can reach $100 million. Fantasy films tend to very well here, as do home grown films, especially Anime.

United Kingdom
The biggest producer of international films in terms of worldwide appeal and another market where a film hitting $100 million isn't unheard of, although for a film to bring in $30 million is about as common as a film hitting $100 million domestically. Not only do they produce a lot of their own films, the U.K. also tends to be the international market that is most receptive to most Hollywood films, especially comedies.

Germany
Germany is a market in transition as recently homegrown movies have really dominated the German speaking markets. Low brow comedies tend to do well here, as do films aimed at an urban audience domestically. Austria tends to have very similar box office tastes as Germany, just with a much smaller box office; a typical film will earn 10% to 20% of what it made in Germany.

France
Similar box office totals to the U.K., but local films tend to dominate the box office more in France. Also, the foreign language films with the biggest domestic box office tend to come from France.

Italy
Eclectic tastes means films that received just a limited release domestically tend to do well here. Hitting $10 million here is about as common as films hitting $150 million domestically.

Australia
Similar to the U.K., with similar tastes, except the average film will earn just half as much at the box office. Also, the local film production industry isn't nearly as strong. Films tend to open in Australia and New Zealand either on the same date, or within weeks of each other.

SpainHorror films are the biggest draw here. One of the smaller major markets with $10 million a major milestone for the market and very few making it to $20 million or above. Films tend to open big and drop very fast, 50% second weekend drop-offs are common.

Mexico
Family films tend to rule the box office here, especially animated films. For a film to hit $10 million in this market is a big deal.